Adams, Walter M.: The house of the hidden places: a clue to the creed of early Egypt from Egyptian sources (London, 1895)

138 The Mystery of the Heavens. [Ch.

four minutes makes the difference of a day
in the star's first appearance, there will for
every grand cycle be a difference of a day
in the heliacal rising of the star : and conse-
quently in 4x365| (or 1461) years the whole
orbit will be traversed. That lovely cycle,
with its tetrachord of starry light just gleam-
ing on the horizon and then vanishing, lost
in the growing splendour, appears from the
allusions to the dawn to have had its spiritual
analogue in the festival of the " Shapes," or
divine forms of beauty; when the departed
re-created in the divine image rose gloriously
from the grave, and shone for a while amid
the company of starry spirits, before merging
his lustre, though not his existence, in the
splendour of the manifested Godhead.

From this highly important cycle we may
draw some conclusion as to the grand epoch
of the Egyptian Kalendar ; the date, that is to
say, when mere tradition came to an end, and
systematic records, organized upon astronomical